Rooney and Gerrard shine as England continue to look good

I know that there were a lot of important international matches yesterday and some really great performances. I’m going to talk about England I’m afraid, even though their game was only a friendly.

Excellent

Before I start, let’s just recognise the excellent performances of El Salvador who held the USA, Mexico who won a game for Sven, Gabon who beat Morocco, Togo who beat Cameroon and Tunisia who won in Kenya.

Also we should recognise Bosnia’s fine win in Belgium, Cyprus beating Georgia, German efficiency against Liechtenstein, Holland ease against Scotland, Northern Ireland’s fine win over Poland, Serbia’s victory in Romania and yet another win and clean sheet for Spain.

Important

Now that I have mentioned most of the performances that were probably better and certainly more important, I can concentrate on the performance of Fabio Capello’s men in their 4-0 win over Slovakia at Wembley.

The two big issues before the game were, would Capello start Ben Foster in goal for his second cap and David Beckham in midfield to win his record breaking cap? The answer to both of those questions was ‘no’. The starting line-up saw David James in goal, a back four of Glen Johnson, John Terry, Matt Upson and Ashley Cole. A loose midfield four of Aaron Lennon, Gareth Barry, Frank Lampard and Steve Gerrard, with Wayne Rooney and Emile Heskey up front.

Starting line-up

I don’t know if that is the starting line-up that Capello was hoping to put out against Ukraine on Wednesday but I would imagine it wouldn’t be far away.

With Gerrard operating from the left but turning up just about anywhere and Wayne Rooney looking like the exciting youngster he was a couple of years ago, England managed to look very threatening going forward. They didn’t look quite so good at the back, but let’s not focus on the concerns!

Rare

After a couple of very early chances England took the lead. Great interplay between Rooney and Gerrard saw the Liverpool man show a great piece of skill in the area and square the ball across the goal for Emile Heskey to bundle home a rare international goal.

Heskey reverted to type a couple of minutes later when he somehow managed to head over the bar when it was easier to score.

Sadly

Sadly, with Heskey looking dangerous, he was forced to limp off after just fourteen minutes when he was replaced by West Ham’s Carlton Cole.

Although the game was relatively easy for England, David James was forced into a couple of decent saves when England’s slightly flimsy looking defence fell asleep.

Treatment table

Unbelievably, just after the half hour mark, Carlton Cole followed Emile Heskey in hobbling off the pitch straight to the treatment table and he was replaced by a not totally fit Peter Crouch.

As well as the constant threat that Gerrard and Rooney were providing England also benefited from the direct running of Aaron Lennon down the right and the careful and clever probing of Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry in the midfield.

Decent

All in all, if we ignore a couple of defensive mix-ups, it was a pretty decent first half performance from England.

At half-time Capello made the changes that were expected and Ben Foster and David Beckham entered the fray at the expense of David James and Aaron Lennon who had both done themselves no harm at all. Middlesbrough’s Stewart Downing came on for the excellent Gerrard.

Impress

England continued to impress in the second half with David Beckham rolling back the years and producing some real quality down the right hand side. It was his great touch and clever little cross that was headed home by Wayne Rooney on seventy minutes to double England’s lead.

On eighty-two minutes Frank Lampard made a trademark run into the box and produced a trademark finish to scuff the ball into the corner of the net past the despairing keeper and in the last minute Rooney got the second goal that his inventive, hard working and skilful performance deserved.

Limped off

The downside to the second half was that Peter Crouch limped off the field to become the third centre-forward casualty of the game.

All in all it was a pretty impressive performance by England and in this form, Steve Gerrard and Wayne Rooney would cause major problems for any defence. On the flip side, it is fair to say that a better attacking force than Slovakia may well have caused England’s back four some considerable difficulty as well.

Lone striker

Capello will be pleased with what he saw but with the injuries to the strikers he has called Darren Bent into the squad for Wednesday’s qualifier against Ukraine. It seems likely that he may be forced to play Rooney as a lone striker which would be a real shame as we saw once again how exceptional he is when he doesn’t carry the responsibility and discipline required to play that role.